It's that time of year! 2019 has been an eventful one for me. I think I'll try to get another year-end wrap up reflect post before the holidays to talk about this year on a more personal front (I already have a book blog tour post that needs to go up next week). But in the meantime, enjoy my 2019 favorites. (Every time I make these posts, I remember that I should keep better track of what I watch and listen to, the same way I track what I read, because my memory is horrible.)

Without further ado, my favorites of 2019, in no particular order!

Favorite Books of 2019

1. ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS by Ocean Vuong
   
   If you follow me on my bookish accounts, this shouldn't come as a surprise to you. The rest of this list is in no particular order, BUT this book is definitely my top read of the year. Which is not to say it's an easy read. I definitely want to write a full blog post about the book (I have a mini review on Instagram). Anyhow, I've recommended this to everyone while also knowing it isn't a book for everyone. I've never read Vuong's poetry--although now I want to--but you can tell the novel is written by a poet. Each word seems carefully selected, each image and metaphor clearly thought out. It's not a perfect book. It's definitely not an easy book. I sped through it, even while needing to put it down often because of the heaviness of it, but I know that most of my friends have had a hard time picking it up because it's so hard-hitting. It feels strange to see so many white people talk about it and relatively few of the Asian (Americans) I know discuss the book. Which is not to say that I'm the intended audience either, as a relatively privileged East Asian American. But there's something about that white gaze that tickles me a certain way. Either way, this book is surely one of my all time favorites, and I'm eagerly awaiting the paperback's release so I can purchase a copy for a little bit cheaper.
   


COLOR ME IN by Natasha Diaz

I reviewed this one for a blog tour! I loved it! You should read it!




THE FOUNTAINS OF SILENCE by Ruta Sepetys

I have sooo many thoughts on this one, and you can bet I'm planning to write a review on this blog and on bookstagram. It's a good one and does a good job of relatively lightly diving into a really dark history and into an exploration of societal collective memory after dictatorship. But as someone who has studied (and will hopefully continue to study!) memory and legacies of dictatorship, the book is still a little too clean and removed, but I guess it's because of the gaze of the main character...Anyway, more will be said, but this was one of my most anticipated reads and it mostly delivered. I'm glad it exists.

                

I WANNA BE WHERE YOU ARE by Kristina Forest

I also have a very, very short review(ish) post on bookstagram about this one! I should have definitely said more, but life, y'all. The perfect summer read for me, and Kristina is the sweetest. Ballet! Road trips! Black main characters and black love/romance! Need I say more?

THE MAP FROM HERE TO THERE by Emery Lord

Emery is one of my favorite authors, as a person and as a writer. To be honest, The Start of Me and You was probably my least favorite of her books. That doesn't mean much because I love all of them, so "least favorite" is weird to say. [Later Jess here to say that I double checked on Goodreads, and When We Collided actually had my lowest (4 star) rating of Emery's books, but I went back and changed TSoMaY to 4 stars because in hindsight it seems more accurate.] Aaaaanyway! I loved this one, and I definitely read it at the right time--as Paige was worrying about massive life changes that were coming up after high school graduation, I was dealing with transitioning out of college. The book still isn't as high energy fun as Open Road Summer (which remains my favorite Emery book), but it's so real.

HIS HIDEOUS HEART edited by Dahlia Adler

This one took me by surprise! It's been a while since I've read an anthology, and this one isn't my usual reading genre at all. But Dahlia truly delivered. I'm not one of those who read Edgar Allen Poe in high school or connected with his work. I read Tell Tale Heart and The Raven in 7th grade for Halloween. We probably spent a day on it and that's it. I went into this anthology, which retells some of Poe's work for modern, diverse audiences, not knowing or remembering any of the original works. I was surprised (I probably should've known about it lol) that the book includes the actual Poe originals at the second portion of the book, but full disclosure, I loved the retellings so much that I didn't even want to read the originals...oops. Some of them were scarier than others (don't read Caleb Roehrig's at night by yourself!), but each story was a joy to read.

                  

RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE by Casey McQuiston

I know this will be on many a favorites compilations. It deserves to be on mine too. Do I really need to say much about this one? And hey, I wrote a mini bookstagram review for this one too! (Katherine's comment honestly made me chuckle, but I'm very glad I have some #brand.)
A BODY OF WORK: Dancing to the Edge and Back by David Hallberg

Dance memoir from one of the biggest names in ballet right now. Also planned to write a full blog post about this one. We'll see if that happens, but in the meantime, I also have a mini bookstagram review of A Body of Work (wow I was on a roll with reviews on Instagram--please give my bookstagram a peruse if you're the bookish type and haven't checked it out yet hehe).

OPEN ROAD SUMMER by Emery Lord (re-read)

I didn't intend to include two re-reads on this list, but I didn't want to have 8 books when I could have 10, so #9 and 10 are re-reads because they remain among my all time favorites and always deserve another shout out. As mentioned, Open Road Summer is my favorite Emery book, and I re-read it almost every year. I still love it. It's one of my most highly recommended, even though most of my friends, if not all of them, are no longer reading YA. This book just always delivers and never fails me. I turn to it when I'm in a slump, which is probably why I picked it up earlier this year.

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT by Dahlia Adler (re-read)


I was nervous going into this re-read because I was scared I wouldn't love it as much as I did the first time, but I'm so glad it still delivered. I first read LWaT in high school, and I wanted to see what I would think of it after having gone through college. I still love the book!! I haven't re-read the others in the series because I only have those on my Kindle and I do have a physical copy of LWaT. Anyway, y'all need to stop sleeping on the series. 

Favorite Movies

senior year: best compilation of music that I listened to and particularly loved this school year
post-grad confusion: not super extensive because I haven't updated it; music I've enjoyed since graduating



college graduation/college memories: music that reminds me of certain experiences, places, and memories from college; I made something similar for high school, but I feel like there's a lot that happened in college that I don't necessarily associate with music but with other things instead
playlist to get me through this polsci thesis: don't judge me! this is music that I could write/concentrate to without being classical/instrumental--it probably also changed a few times as I got used to certain music and had to swap it out